What modern cities have the lowest rates of private vehicle ownership due to mass transit and or walkability? (buy, car tax)
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I can't say much about the other things, but that's actually not really surprising. Liechtenstein has a small, but rich population, is rather rural (not in Alaskan terms of rural, of course, but for European standards), and both the Swiss and the Austrian areas close to the border are quite rural, too.
we had a friend ( an economist) who did a time and motion study on his wife. For one month living in Hong Kong her and the 2 kids took a cab EVERYWHERE. after a month she gave him the receipts... he decided hands down it was not worth buying a car...
but I never owned a car until I was 41 and lived in the US, in London I didn't need one, nor in HK or singapore... here I can't even go to buy milk without getting in the car for a 3 mile trip...
So basically, in all the rich countries people love cars no matter what they say.
I love the car (merc 350slk) I have but if I could walk everywhere I'd give it up tomorrow...no thought process..... I lived without a car until I was 41...
So basically, in all the rich countries people love cars no matter what they say.
Well - even the highest don't reach a 1:1 ratio of cars to humans, and given that a country like the US has lots of multiple-car owners, that still leaves a fair slice who don't own one.
People shouldn't be surprised that a country like the Netherlands doesn't have particularly low car ownership (similar to the UK, for example). I would take a bet that the proportion of the population owning a car in the Netherlands is close tho that of the the US, with lower multi-car ownership. This would also fit with its higher median income. Proportion of journeys made by car will be much lower though, as even wealthy car-owners generally don't needlessly use their cars for short journeys (as often happens in the UK).
I would say Singapore or Hong Kong. Cars are expensive there, public transport is great, everything is so dense and easy to get too so what's the point? Even a low-level car like a Hyundai which would be cheap here is expensive there. Some Asian cities have low car ownership but high ownership of motorbikes and scooters, e.g. Vietnam and some cities in China. My guess is that even Amsterdam and Copenhagen have relatively high rates compared to the cities I mentioned above, but I don't know the stats. Some European cities like Rome actually have surprisingly high rates. New York has a higher level of car ownership than you would expect if you take all the boroughs. Maybe the rate for Manhattan is very low though.
Netherlands is higher than expected. Didn't realise China was THAT low. Japan is also higher than expected. Not too surprised at Vietnam, if motorbikes are excluded. Cars are a real minority there. Vietnamese people told me only rich people owned cars there. And I only saw run of the mill type models, nothing more upmarket than a Toyota. Canada's rate of 620, lower than the US and Australia by some margin, makes sense since they have a few compact cities with excellent PT.
Most cities and even villages in China are very walkable and negate the need for a car.. plus, most cars cost about 2-3 times what an identical car costs in the US. With a per capita income of about 1/10 of the US, it's pretty logical car ownership will be drastically lower there. I hope it stays that way for them.. the notion of China building massive sprawling suburbs akin to the Inland Empire and the accompanying surge in the already unacceptable levels of pollution.. =
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